Low-Carb Sriracha Beef Cabbage Bowl (Video)

posted by Kalyn Denny on March 28, 2014

This Low-Carb Sriracha Beef Cabbage Bowl is just the right amount of spicy for me, but you can use less heat if you prefer. Everyone who likes Sriracha and cabbage will love this tasty bowl meal that’s low-carb, Keto, low-glycemic, gluten-free, and South Beach Diet friendly. Use theDiet-Type Indexto find more recipes like this one.

Watch the video to see if you might want to make Sriracha Beef Cabbage Bowl.

I love it when I get a good cooking idea from one of my favorite people, and my friend Jeanne was the brains behind this Low-Carb Sriracha Beef Cabbage Bowl recipe, which I’ve already cooked and devoured several times. Jeanne has already made an appearance on the blog, because one of my all-time favorite salad recipes was created in honor of her wedding.

Then last summer she came for lunch to check out the new house, and I made two of my favorite recipes for her. Jeanne had the brilliant idea to pile the meat from Quick Sriracha Beef Lettuce Wraps on top of Spicy Mexican Slaw, and this recipe was born. The creamy coolness of the cabbage slaw is the perfect partner to the spicy Sriracha beef in this recipe; hope you enjoy!

Of course, you know how I am. I did change both components of this new recipe just a little from the originals. One of the biggest changes was to use a package of coleslaw mix for the cabbage, which makes the recipe so quick and easy that I hope you’ll make it often! I also cut down on the spiciness in the cabbage part just a bit, so it’s a cooling element for the spicy meat. (If you’re making this for kids, you might want to cut down the spice even more.) This recipe is deliciously South Beach Diet friendly, and is also Low Carb, and Can be Paleo if you make your own mayo and use an approved hot sauce.

I rarely pre-cut coleslaw mix, but it was perfect to make this recipe super quick to make. Of course, you can cut up your own cabbage if you prefer. When Jeanne came, I cut up the cabbage with the 3mm blade of my mandoline, which also made it easy. (And in case anyone is wondering, Dole has no idea that I’m showing their coleslaw mix on my blog!) You want the cabbage bowl part all ready when the meat is cooked. I prepped 1 1/2 cups thinly sliced sugar snap peas and sliced up half of a red bell pepper.

Whisk together the mayo, fresh squeezed lime juice, Green Tabasco Sauce, and Vege-Sal (or salt) to make the dressing. Combine the coleslaw mix, sliced sugar snap peas, and bell pepper strips in a bowl so it’s ready to toss with the dressing when the meat is cooked. (Save a little bit of the sliced sugar snap peas and pepper strips to garnish.)

Heat a tiny amount of grapeseed oil (or any neutral-flavored high-heat oil) and saute the beef until it’s well-browned. While the beef cooks, zest the lime, squeeze the lime juice, and mix the Sriracha, Fish Sauce, and water so they’re ready to season the meat as soon as it’s done.

Also chop a bunch of cilantro and slice some green onions. When the beef is done, add the Sriracha mixture and stir to combine with the meat, cooking until the liquid has mostly evaporated from the pan.

Then turn off the stove and stir in the lime zest, lime juice, sliced green onions, and chopped cilantro. Add the dressing to the cabbage mixture and toss to combine.

To make the cabbage bowls, put 1/4 of the slaw mixture into a bowl. Top with 1/4 of the beef mixture and garnish with some of the veggies you saved. Devour immediately.

Directions:

If you’re not using the coleslaw mix, use a mandoline or sharp knife to make 14 ounces thinly sliced green and red cabbage. (I would skip the carrots if you don’t use coleslaw mix.) Thinly slice sugar snap peas on the diagonal.

Cut the red bell pepper in half, remove seeds from the half you’re using, cut that half lengthwise into two pieces, and then thinly slice crosswise to make short, thin strips. (You can use all the red pepper if you prefer.)

Put the cabbage mixture into a bowl so it’s ready to toss with the dressing as soon as the beef is ready, saving a little bit of the sugar snap peas and peppers for garnish.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan, add the beef, and cook over medium-high heat until all the meat is nicely browned, breaking apart with a turner as it cooks. While the beef is cooking, zest the lime skin and then squeeze the lime juice. (You might need to squeeze another lime or use some fresh-frozen lime juice to get enough juice if your lime is small.)

Mix together the fish sauce, Sriracha Sauce, and water, replacing some of the Sriracha with an equal amount of water if you’re making it less spicy.)

When the beef is nicely browned, add the Sriracha mixture and cook while stirring until the liquid has mostly evaporated.

Turn off the stove and stir in the lime zest, lime juice, sliced green onion, and chopped cilantro. Toss the cabbage mixture with the dressing.

To assemble the cabbage bowls, put 1/4 of the cabbage mixture into each bowl, top with 1/4 of the beef mixture, and garnish with some sliced sugar snap peas and red pepper strips. Enjoy!

Notes:

The beef mixture will keep in the fridge for a day or so, although it’s best freshly made. If you are going to be having leftovers, I would only add dressing to the amount of cabbage you’ll use at that meal and refrigerate the leftover meat, leftover cabbage, and dressing separately. Then re-heat the meat and combine the cabbage and dressing when you eat the leftovers.

This recipe idea came from Kalyn’s long-time friend Jeanne, with refinements by Kalyn.

Low-Carb Diet / Low-Glycemic Diet / South Beach Diet Suggestions:
Low-Carb Sriracha Beef Cabbage Bowl is a perfect recipe for the South Beach Diet, and most other low-carb eating plans. Most commercial coleslaw mix has carrots which are higher in carbs and aren’t permitted for South Beach Phase One, but the amount of carrots is very small, so I wouldn’t stress over it too much. If you use approved mayo and hot sauce, this can even be Paleo.

Nutritional Information?
If you want nutritional information for a recipe, I recommend entering the recipe into this nutrition analyzer, which will calculate it for you. Or if you’re a member of Yummly, you can use the Yum button on my site to save the recipe and see the nutritional information there.

Kalyn, I have been making recipes from your site for too long to have not commented before… Thank you for so many great meals!! When I saw this I felt compelled to make it immediately. It was fantastic. Anything that involves sriracha makes me happy 🙂

Kalyn, this looks delicious. However, I had to laugh when you said to use less cilantro if you are not a fan. If you were one of the unfortunate people like me who taste soap when they eat cilantro, you'd know that even a little bit of cilantro is enough to make a whole dish taste nasty. 🙂 I'm afraid I'll have to just leave it out entirely.

This looks real good, will have to try with bison meat. I have a question about the picture versus the ingredients list. The picture clearly shows snow peas cut up on top of the salad, but they are not listed in the ingredients. Please advise why. tysm

How could this not be a hit? I can't wait to try it… Just one more time that you have taken a bunch of ingredients that I love and combined them in a new way that I'd never have thought of. I definitely find the coleslaw mix a time saver. Wonder if ground turkey would work.Thanks for this, and all the others!

I made this for dinner tonight and it was a great light late summer meal. It was a break from more traditional salads and I loved all the crunch. I think it will hold up well as leftovers or for a work lunch. I look forward to trying a few variations. Asian flavored slaw + ginger chicken? Slaw with italian vinaigrette and some sautéed shrimps with sun-dried tomatoes? This is going to lead to a lot of great dinners/lunches.

Have tried lots of your recipes – they're all delicious, but my hubby raved about this one. Hope you don't mind, but I used what was on hand – my tweaks were thinly sliced top sirloin instead of the ground beef, organic tamari for the fish sauce, sliced radishes and avocado for the snow peas and red pepper (well, they were the same color!). It turned out just wonderful – thank you for the inspiration.

This recipe is DELICIOUS- and I love the idea of making a lot of different kinds of bowls like this one. We found a mix at two of our regular grocery chains called angel hair cole slaw- it's just finely shredded green cabbage. Worked perfectly for this recipe, because there's no carrots. For red cabbage lovers though, you'd have to add it in.

Made this 2 days ago. Really loved it!! Did save the leftovers the way you suggested (separated) and plan to have them today for lunch! Thanks! I'm going to pull this into my own personal recipe database (it's not a blog, just a database for my own use, but it does have a place for crediting the recipe)

We absolutely love this recipe! I've made it probably 4 times in the last two months. Sometimes I saute the snow peas and red pepper just a little and add to the ground beef. This is so quick and easy to make.

This was delicious! It's a good thing you added the comment that it was Phase 1 – hard to believe with the mayonnaise. When I'm South Beachin, I tend to find something I like, like your Sauerkraut Soup, and just eat it all the time. This will be my summer sauerkraut soup, along with the fish version! Yum!

Hi Katy, so glad you enjoyed it. I'm probably pushing the limit a little on the mayo, that's one of my weaknesses. South Beach allows up to 2 tablespoons of low-fat mayo but personally I'd rather have less and have real mayo.

I rarely comment on recipes, but had to on this one! The flavors were great on this – honestly way better than I expected! I left out the red pepper as it isn't my thing, and I added a couple slices of avocado on top. Absolutely love it though, and it's going in my regular rotation for sure!

This was DEEEELICIOUS. Even my 15-year old son raved about it: "it's a really good mix the spicy and sour". I enjoyed it so much that I made up the slaw again the next day to eat with blackened tilapia. Super yummy!

This was really yummy! Just right balance of flavors. And not sweet, 5 stars for that. 3 portions left to freeze for lunches, since I'm a home-mom, and I like a nice homemade lunch.Which is always a plus.(Although it was hard to stop at 1/4 batch! I could have eaten half of it! I know that 1/4 was enough, though, so I packed up the extra right away!) Thanks for this. I've tried several ground beef *fusion* recipes, and this was the only keeper so far@

Kalyn, Thanks for this recipe–it's truly genius! And delicious! I made this with ground turkey because husband doesn't eat red meat. I sliced the both the cabbage and red pepper on my mandolin and loved the superfine texture, then spiralized a carrot for additional color and crunch. LOVE the snap peas in this, they add so much freshness! I went ahead and dressed everything and portioned the leftovers after dinner. Having some for lunch now and it's still great! Thank you!!

This is one of my absolute favorite meals! It’s a wonderful combination o spicy, crunchy, hot, and cold – I just LOVE it! I substitute snow peas for the sugar snap peas (I just like them better), but other than that I could eat the entire thing by myself in one sitting if I’m not careful!